


tender arms, hold me tight

by atlantisairlock



Category: Military Wives (2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Happy Ending, Minor Character Death, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: He doesn’t know it, but Jamie enlists at the same age as Kate and Richard were when they tied the knot.Canon AU where Jamie isn't KIA.
Relationships: Kate Barkley/Lisa Lawson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	tender arms, hold me tight

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a monster but i have no regrets.
> 
> title from 'you can't hurry love' by the supremes.

He doesn’t know it, but Jamie enlists at the same age as Kate and Richard were when they tied the knot. Just twenty years old, giddily in love and going down to the register office closest to their university with their best friends as their witnesses. A simple ceremony, no-frills, even before they’d completed their final year. She’d worn the nicest white dress she could find in her closet, a simple knee-length affair paired with her best heels. Richard had borrowed a blazer from his roommate and spent a hundred pounds on a ring she still wears on her left hand even though he’s told her countless times over the years that he can get her a nicer, costlier one now.

It’s been twenty-two years since that day and Kate wonders now how she ever believed they were grown at that age - still so green, so coarse at the edges, still unsure of the realities of the world around them. She felt adult then; she’s not sure if she does now - just old, just tired. In those twenty-two years, she’s seen so much. Her best friend in university, the one who witnessed her wedding, is long-dead from complications under anesthesia when they were twenty-five. She’s borne four miscarriages, one before Jamie, three after. She taught history in two schools - fourteen years at the second one, until budget cuts turned her out and Jamie and Richard convinced her she’d worked enough and she could sit back and retire early now. Twenty-one years spent raising her son - her strong, smart, brave, funny boy who followed in his father’s footsteps a year ago, deployed for six months, and came back more thoughtful, more pensive, hale, healthy and alive.

Three months into Jamie’s post-operational leave, Richard sits them down after dinner and tells them he’s been deployed once more. It’ll be his fifth tour - the fifth time in his life he’ll be leaving her for six months at a stretch, the fourth time she’ll have Jamie with her through it all.

“You take care of your mum while I’m away,” Richard says to Jamie. “I will,” Jamie replies, in the same breath Kate snorts and says, “I can take care of myself.” Richard squeezes her hand in acknowledgment, but still taps the side of Jamie’s bowl sharply with his spoon. “Don’t go into town so often and leave her all alone.”

“I’ll be _fine,_ it’s your fifth tour,” says Kate, amused and exasperated all at once. “I have done this before, if you’ve forgotten.”

Richard gives her a look. “It’s a little different this time. You won’t be working.”

“If you think I need a paying job to keep myself busy, Richard Barkley, you don’t know me well enough,” she replies crisply. She catches Jamie muffling laughter from across the table and holds back her own grin. “So - when is it exactly that you’re shipping out?”

“So, what _are_ you going to be doing while Dad’s away?”

Kate turns to raise an eyebrow at Jamie, who’s sat at the kitchen table helping her peel the potatoes for tonight’s stew. It’ll be Richard’s last dinner with them for six months and she wants to make something nice before he goes off. “I should ask _you_ that. All you’ve been doing the past three months is going into town and working on that awful car of yours.”

“No Dave slander in the presence of Siderider,” Jamie warns. “And don’t dodge the question, Mum.”

“Well. I think I’m going to offer my help in supporting the wives. You know, getting them together. Bonding, keeping them distracted, keeping their minds off - you know.”

Jamie makes a considering noise. “Yeah, that sounds up your alley.”

“Why all this incessant curiosity, anyway? I don’t remember you playing interrogator the last time your Dad went off on tour,” Kate says, reaching over to ruffle his hair. Jamie dodges, laughing, but his reply is earnest. “There aren’t so many things to occupy your time this go around. Just want to make sure you’ll be okay, especially when I’m not at home.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kate repeats. She says it with a bit more firmness, and Jamie knows well enough to take a hint, returning to the potatoes. Kate stirs the stock and sighs. She loves Jamie, but there are things even he won’t really understand. Kate was pregnant with him on Richard’s first tour, and he was just a child on the next three. She knows he remembers his Dad leaving for extended periods of time, that the wait to return was anxious for both of them, but watching Richard leave, every time, means things to Kate that don’t necessarily impact Jamie the same way. It’s not her first time alone and she has coped through worse.

“I am a little worried, though,” she continues, to lighten the mood. “Not about your Dad, but about Lisa - you know, the new RSM’s wife. She’s in charge of supporting the wives this tour and she’s _very_ cavalier about the whole thing.”

“Oh, right - Sergeant Major Lawson got promoted, yeah, I remember Dad talking about that. Is that why you’re offering your help?”

Kate hums agreement and Jamie chuckles. “Well, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”

“Don’t you get funny with me, James Matthew Barkley,” says Kate, shooting Jamie a glare of mock annoyance, and Jamie widens his eyes and pretends at innocence. “No, no, I mean it. I’m sure you two will get along swimmingly.”

“That’ll be the day,” Kate snorts. “Are you done with those potatoes?”

“Almost, almost. Are you _sure_ they’ve all got to go in the stew? Couldn’t we fry some hashbrowns? Just one? Maybe two? Please? Please?”

Kate sighs and rolls her eyes with a smile. Jamie’s spent twenty-one years pleading with her over various things and inevitably always getting his way. It’s always so hard to say no to him. “Fine. But you’re going to fry them yourself. And don’t eat them all before your Dad gets home. I know your little ways.”

“I would never,” Jamie protests, and returns to potato peeling with renewed vigour.

They see Richard off together, at the door. Richard hugs Jamie tight, gives Kate a soft kiss on her forehead and pushes her hair back behind her ear. “Until we laugh again?”

“Mm,” Kate murmurs. His hand lingers against her cheek one more moment, then he’s turning away and disappearing into the night, heading back off to the war. Kate watches, keeps watching, until she loses sight of him and she’s just in her doorway staring out into the darkness. Jamie rests his hand on her shoulder, squeezes tight, and gently pulls her back. They lock the door, turn the lights out, and head upstairs.

She goes to meet Lisa the next morning - properly, as colleagues, for the first time. She is summarily rendered unimpressed and unsurprised in quick succession. Coffee mornings and potluck parties indeed; Kate’s suddenly reminded why she kept so much to herself when she and Richard first moved into Flitcroft and why that’s never really changed. She’s not best pleased. Surely there are activities for the women to engage in that don’t involve copious amounts of alcohol? Something they can all agree on. _Surely._

Lisa suggests they brainstorm at the coffee morning happening the next day, with the other wives, which Kate thinks is actually a pretty good idea - get a feel for where the women stand, not just Lisa. She turns up hopeful and excited, flush with ideas, and discovers that where the women stand is, very disappointingly, more in line with Lisa’s lot than hers.

Until Sarah, young and new to the garrison, still fresh-faced and hesitant, raises her hand. “What about singing?”

“Singing,” Kate says slowly - that, at least, sounds promising, though possibly challenging. She knows a bit about music because Jamie loves it, had a phase in his childhood where he seriously thought about pursuing it as a career before deciding he wanted to be more like his Dad than anything else. “Has anyone had any experience with running a choir?”

Ruby speaks up, mentioning the most unlikely person Kate would’ve thought. “Lisa. You’re musical, no?”

Lisa looks startled, denials rising immediately to her lips. “No, no. My mum, she used to teach music. But, uh, choir, that’s not really my thing.”

Kate wonders if Lisa will ever come to surprise her. She’s not very hopeful about the prospect. But the idea’s still an interesting one. Certainly worthy of consideration.

She talks about it with Jamie over dinner; his eyes light up and for a moment he looks childlike in his excitement, like he’s eleven again, strumming Richard’s old guitar and singing You Can’t Hurry Love, voice peaking and smoothing out with perfect pitch. “A _choir?_ Seriously? Like, Bach Choir _choir?”_

“Maybe not quite the Bach Choir. I don’t think any of them have even heard of vocal training,” she corrects him. “It’s just an idea. Choirs are challenging, aren’t they? Require focus and dedication and all that. And they’re uplifting. I think it could be a good thing for them to keep their minds on.”

“It sounds amazing. I would have loved to be in a choir back in school, if we’d had one.” He sounds terribly wistful for a second, but it quickly fades, his smile bright and excited. “Well, let me know if I can help out. I think I’ve still got some of my music books in the attic.”

“I’ll take a look. Thank you, darling.”

“No bother. How’s working with Lisa?”

Kate huffs a sigh and Jamie just laughs. “Oh, don’t be like that, Mum. She can’t be that bad.”

“She’s not taking the thing with any sort of seriousness is all. And you know I can’t stand when people just treat everything like a lark.”

Jamie’s gaze softens, his brows drawing together; he idly stirs his soup. “Well. Everything around us is - serious. There’s an element of _seriousness_ in all our lives that’s ever-present. I mean, I know I haven’t met her so maybe I’m wrong, but - I don’t know, Mum. Maybe it’s worth considering? That she acts like she doesn’t care because there’s so much else to have to care about? It’s a lot of weight to carry. And not everyone’s as strong as you.”

Kate sighs again, eyes on her plate. Jamie has a way of seeing things from perspectives she never even considered, of seeing the best in people. It makes her feel proud (of him) and a little ashamed (of herself). “Maybe you’re right,” she agrees, although she can’t help but still feel annoyed when she thinks of Lisa’s offhand ways, her snarky comebacks. But she’ll try to learn patience; if Jamie can, there’s no reason why she can’t.

New worries overtake that the very next morning. She wakes to Jamie shaking her shoulder, cellphone to his ear and expression tight and grim. “It’s Captain Crooks,” he whispers. “Comms are down. No further details right now.”

Kate sits up straight, feeling her blood turning to ice. “But they’ve only just got there.”

He hands the phone over wordlessly; Kate only half-listens to what Crooks says on the other end. Jamie sits heavily down on the bed beside her, shoulder to shoulder, gently taking the phone back from her when she hangs up. She pulls him into a hug and they just stay like that for a while, Kate reminding herself that they’re both breathing, that as far as they know, Richard is too. They just can’t hear that straight from him right now. That’s all it is, that’s all it has to be.

She doesn’t think she’s crying when she finally gets up but she scrubs a quick hand across her face anyway, taking a deep breath. “I’d better do the rounds. Tell some of the other women.” Her thoughts flick suddenly to Sarah, and Kate feels a rush of sympathy - she remembers the first time Richard went on tour, the knot of fear sitting in her chest those six months until he made it home. One month pregnant with Jamie at the time and worrying endlessly about what might happen while he was halfway around the world. The loneliness of it was the worst part, and if she can help someone feel less lonely than she did back then, she’d like to try. “Are you busy? Do you want to join me?”

He squeezes her shoulder, kisses her cheek - her kind, generous boy, always ready to lend a hand where he’s needed. “Sure, Mum. I’ll make us some toast, you get changed.”

“See you downstairs,” Kate says, already planning out her route for the day.

Jamie drives her down to Lisa’s right after a quick breakfast, and Kate critically eyes the empty bottles on the garden bench. No doubt there’ll be a lot more drinking tonight if comms don’t go back up anytime soon. And one never knows, with the situation as precarious as it is. The thought of a choir flits across her mind again - a proper, healthier distraction that won’t eventually lead to liver damage.

She plots thoughtfully in the passenger seat after she gives Lisa the news and Jamie drives them to Sarah’s, thinks through how she’s going to make this happen, then carefully shelves her idea away for further reference when Sarah opens the door to them. Jamie gives her that sweet, gentle smile of his that somehow always manages to put people at ease. “Hi - Sarah? You’re Private Cartwright’s wife, yeah?”

Sarah looks startled, but Kate sees her relax a little at this more familiar ground. “Do you know Liam?”

“I’ve seen him around the garrison, chatted to him once or twice. He’s very nice; I like him. Got a good sense of humour.”

“Yeah, he does,” Sarah agrees, smiling as she shows them into her living room. “Although I’ve always thought it was a little juvenile at times, he - oh, God, that’s exactly what I mean,” she groans when they all catch sight of two teddy bears lying on top of a shelf in a rather compromising position. Sarah rushes to set them back upright; Kate raises her eyebrows while Jamie chuckles. “That’s pretty funny.”

“Sorry, Liam just - he likes to arrange our teddies in these awful sexual positions whenever I leave the room. He’s been doing it since we were kids - well, not _kids,_ but, you know, teenagers - well.” Sarah flounders a little and Jamie just grins back at her. “I think it’s a laugh. You should try that with Dad, Mum - see how long it takes him to notice.”

“I will respectfully decline,” Kate says drily. She glances around the living room, in a state of disarray, boxes still half-emptied and the pieces of what looks like a stationary bicycle scattered on the rug, and broaches the question carefully. “Are you adjusting well to Flitcroft? Are you getting used to the garrison?”

“It’s - all right,” Sarah replies, sounding hesitant. “Still finding my way around, I think. And unpacking has taken longer than I thought - without Liam around.” She swallows, gaze darting to her phone; she knows about comms being down by now. “It’s - I guess it’s lonely. Which is stupid, I knew it would be, I was prepared for that, it’s just - different when he’s really gone.”

Which makes Kate think of the choir again, the idea of it - if nothing else, it could bring them together. How many of the wives, especially those who aren’t working full-time or don’t have children to occupy every hour of their lives, feel the same way as Sarah does? If it could help them a little, then why not?

“We can help you with the unpacking, at least,” she hears Jamie say, tuning back into his conversation with Sarah. “Perhaps we can start with this… bike? Is this an exercise bike?”

Sarah laughs softly. “Yeah, Liam’s all about fitness, he’s always on my case about it - made me promise to spend twenty minutes on it every day while he was away. Wish he’d set it up before he deployed, though, I can’t make sense of the instructions.”

“Well, let’s see if three heads can’t figure them out. Mum, come help us take a look.”

Kate’s useless at manual labour and even piecing together Ikea furniture has always been beyond Jamie’s abilities, but she knows that’s not the point - they both do. Sarah flattens out the gigantic one-sheet of instructions and starts frowning over it with Jamie, her thoughts for at least the next half hour focused on wrestling the bike together instead of worrying about Liam in Afghanistan. But she needs more than a half-hour. They all do. Kate resolves to look for Jamie’s music books in the attic first thing when she gets home, and goes over to join them.

She brings hymn sheets and low expectations to the next coffee morning, just to get a sense of where the women could possibly be at. Where they’re at is awful, but Kate’s always believed in being able to achieve difficult things through hard work and discipline.

Lisa, on the other hand, makes an excuse about going in to work and compares the singing to the incantations of witches.

“A bit dramatic,” Kate replies, to which Lisa snorts as she storms out of the welfare centre. “If you think singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ with a pole up your arse is what the women need, then you’re more out of touch than I thought.”

“They need something to focus on. To work on collectively.” She ignores Lisa’s mutter about how she’s pretty sure Afghanistan is enough. “Look, Lisa, I’m just trying to my duty as - “

“Then _do_ it, you don’t need my permission - “

“I can’t do this without you,” Kate interrupts, then startles a little, frowning to herself - had she meant to say that, exactly? “As in - look, we both know they won’t join in if you don’t. I know how the women feel about me.”

She does. There’s a reason why Richard and Jamie get worried about her when she’s on her own, when they’re away or busy and she doesn’t have her job to occupy her. She’s not the warm and fuzzy type, isn’t boisterous like Maz or friendly like Ruby or effortlessly charming and conversational like Lisa. She doesn’t drink, has never liked the romantic comedies or cheap action flicks the other wives are so fond of watching together, and Richard’s meteoric rise through the ranks has only served to widen the distance between her and the other servicepeople’s wives over the years. She doesn’t really have friends, which is fine - she’s not really in the business of making friends - but if she wants this to work, she needs someone working with her whose lead the wives will follow. Who’ll be looked to, even if Kate directs everything from behind the scenes.

Lisa doesn’t look pleased or convinced - still doesn’t look it even when they hear the faint echo of hymns being sung from where they left the wives in the welfare centre. Her glance does shift up to the windows, though, and Kate pushes a little harder. “You may not need the choir, Lisa, but those women do.”

She sees it the moment Lisa relents, and has to quash a pleased, relieved smile. Even her request for it to be called a singing club instead of a choir doesn’t bring Kate down. They can call it what they like; the end result is the same.

She ropes Jamie in to help distribute invitations after she and Lisa go on the local radio to promote the new choir (Kate refuses to call it a ‘singing club’ to herself; she’s got to draw the whole ‘compromise’ line _somewhere)._ Quite predictably he gets rid of his stack far quicker than Kate does, what with his charming, boyish smile convincing all the women to take an invitation if only to appease him. Kate, for her part, resorts to stuffing papers down mail slots so she can’t get turned away from doors. Jamie laughs over it as he strolls by the remaining houses with her, hands in his pockets. “This is so exciting. My _mother_ , leading a choir.”

“Hearing Lisa talk about it you’d never believe that’s what it is,” Kate grumbles. Jamie just chuckles. “At least she said yes to leading it with you. Small steps, right?”

Kate huffs. “Sometimes I do wonder _where_ you got your eternal optimism from.”

“From your sunny personality, Mum.”

Kate thwacks him lightly on the head with a rolled-up copy of one of the remaining invitations; Jamie laughs again and puts an arm around her shoulders. “So, what’s the plan for Mrs Barkley’s first choir practice?”

Good question. Kate decides she’ll have to think about that. “I think your music books are going to come in very handy.”

In the end, all of Jamie’s old notes and instructional texts come to naught; Kate’s attempt at separating the women into sopranos and altos and starting them on count singing is utterly derailed by Lisa leading them into a spirited but unrefined rendition of Don’t You Want Me. It’s not a song Kate particularly likes and it just makes her feel - frustrated. Why can’t Lisa ever just _listen,_ see the forest for the trees, see what Kate’s trying to do with the choir? “It’s not sober karaoke,” she snaps at Lisa, after leaving. “It needs to be _challenging,_ so that for one hour they’re thinking about something other than their troubles. We can’t just - _muddle_ through. It needs to be organised. Something we both know is _not_ your strong suit.”

Jamie frowns at her when she recounts what happened while they’re washing the dishes that night. “That’s a little harsh, wasn’t it?”

“A little,” Kate admits. She’s never been brilliant at guarding her tongue; it’s always been a fault of hers. “I know, I know, I should be more patient and understanding. She just gets under my skin sometimes.” She shakes her head. “I feel like - she has leadership qualities, you know? The women do look to her. And she has a good voice; she could really be an asset to the choir if she tried. And she just _won’t.”_

“I don’t think making personal attacks is going to make her any more amenable to compromise,” Jamie points out mildly. “Why don’t you speak with her _outside_ of practices or coffee mornings? Try talking to her about it one-on-one in a neutral environment. Just be frank about what you’re trying to do with the choir, show her you’re not trying to be difficult just for the sake of it. I’m sure you can work together, you just have to figure out how.”

“I suppose that’s not a bad idea,” Kate says slightly grudgingly. She wonders if she ought to be concerned that her son is smarter and more thoughtful than she is, then decides it’s probably testament to successful parenting. Jamie finishes drying the last of the dishes and gives her a genial smile. “Come on. Let’s go watch a film or something. Take your mind off things.”

“I’m not watching another one of those awful Fast and Furious movies you like so much,” Kate warns, following him to the living room. Jamie rolls his eyes, peering through their DVD collection. “Yes, Mum, I know you don’t appreciate explosive car chases and brotherhood. How do you feel about The Royal Tenenbaums?”

Kate doesn’t actually end up meeting Lisa and talking things through, but when she turns up at the next practice Lisa’s got a keyboard set up and the women are holding lyric sheets. Lisa shoves a copy in Kate’s hands and a quick scan of the sheet shows Kate that it’s only got the soprano bit. “How are they going to know when to come in?”

“Because I told them,” says Lisa, and Kate feels it like a sting; _without me?_ She bites back a retort and sets up her stand to rest her sheets on. She’s not very optimistic about the choir’s chances at performing Only You particularly well, not with this ‘because I told them’ nonsense and nothing else.

Sure enough, their first attempt is… dismal. No other word for it. But Kate listens - to the shaky vocals, the uncertainty, the nervousness - and realises that, beneath it, there’s _something._ They are trying to come in when they should, they _are_ trying to keep the tune, hold their notes. They just need a little more cohesion.

She steps in to try and conduct them, make it a bit more organised. With a sigh, Lisa follows her lead, playing the tune on her keyboard and singing along as she does it. _“Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… can you hear me?”_

And… a miracle seems to happen, unfolding before Kate’s eyes. The other altos’ voices join in, mingling with Lisa’s, soft and lovely, buoyed by the soprano’s backing. They get louder. Stronger, and surer. From the corner of her eye Kate sees surprise flicker across Lisa’s face, then a smile. They reach the chorus and Lisa grins, giving the women a thumbs-up. They’re all smiling by the time they finish the song, and Kate feels a surge of joy and delight as she brings her hands down. They did it. They did it, and they actually sounded _good._ The atmosphere is beginning to pick up, somehow - the women sitting straighter in their chairs, looking eager and excited.

“That was amazing,” Lisa says, sincere, pleased. She looks at Kate and there’s a light in her eyes that Kate hasn’t seen before. “Shall we try that again?”

“Absolutely,” Kate replies, and thinks - _this could happen._

Jamie comes to pick her up after practice; she plays him the recording of their final run-through of Only You and he hums along. “That sounds really good, Mum. You picked the song?”

“No, Lisa. She prepared lyric sheets and everything; she even brought a keyboard, I don’t know from where.” Jamie turns to look at her, eyebrows raised and smiling, looking curious and triumphant all at once, and Kate rolls her eyes. “Don’t say ‘I told you so’.”

“Wasn’t going to,” he blatantly lies. “But I _did_ say you’d be able to find a way to work together.”

Kate makes a noise that might be assent. They’d ended practice on a higher note than the one before, Lisa telling her she’d go look for more songs that the choir could manage, that she was looking forward to the next practice. Like it was something she really, genuinely wanted to do. Kate didn’t expect to be surprised by Lisa but now she has. She thinks it bodes well for the months ahead. She can’t wait to show Richard what she’s been up to when he gets home. She thinks he’ll be impressed.

The night before their next practice, Kate’s getting the laundry out of the dryer when Jamie, from where he’s sitting in the living room flipping through a car magazine, suddenly looks up sharply and glances towards the front door. “Mum. Do you hear that?”

“Hear wh - “

“Listen,” says Jamie, a little more urgently, setting his magazine on the coffee table and heading to the door. Kate strains and manages to hear faint shuffling footsteps and a couple of soft thudding sounds, like some things have fallen on the ground. “Someone’s outside.”

“Jamie, be _careful,”_ Kate warns, but he’s already going to the door; Kate follows quickly as he hurries down the garden path to the gate. There’s a girl crouching on the pavement, the contents of her bag strewn around her, and she’s valiantly trying to retrieve them. It’s obvious she’s not entirely sober. Kate squints and realises she knows who she is. _“Frankie?_ Are you all right?”

“My stuff’s all _wet,”_ Frankie says, turning to look at Kate and Jamie and nearly toppling over in the process. Jamie rushes forward to steady her. “It’s fine, all’s good. I’ve got you. Mum - can you get her in the house? I’ll pick her stuff up and be right back.”

Kate nods, letting Frankie lean on her as she gently guides her back down the house, through the front door and into the living room. Frankie practically collapses onto the couch, looking much worse for the wear. Well, Kate can guess what she got up to tonight.

“She okay?” Jamie asks. He’s got his arms full with Frankie’s things, carefully placing them on the coffee table. “What happened?”

“I think she’s just drunk,” Kate replies. Frankie makes a faint protesting grumble. “I’m not drunk, I - I only had one.”

“Yeah, I remember the first time I ‘only had one’ too,” Jamie says good-humouredly. He’d come home completely plastered and thrown up twice in the sink; Richard had made him sleep on the couch and revoked Dave privileges for three weeks. He goes to get a bucket so Frankie doesn’t hurl all over the rug if she throws up, and Kate rings Lisa, who doesn’t pick up on the first call. Or the second. Or the fifth.

“Do you want me to go get her?” Jamie asks after Kate ends the sixth attempt in frustration; Kate shakes her head. “It’s late. Lisa stays twenty-five minutes away on foot; I don’t want you out there on your own.”

“Well, Frankie can’t stay on the couch all night.” Jamie frowns, then glances up the stairs towards his room. “Do you think she can make it up a flight? She could stay in my room, I’ll take the couch for tonight.”

Kate smiles at him, proud of how generous he is, how giving. “I think I can help her up. Can you keep calling Lisa, just in case? Frankie,” she gently shakes Frankie’s shoulder, rousing her again. “Come on, let’s get you up - just a floor up, you should be in a proper bed. Jamie, your room’s _clean,_ isn’t it?”

“Have some faith in me, Mum, I’m twenty-one,” Jamie retorts, already holding Kate’s phone to his ear, waiting to see if Lisa picks up this time. Frankie stumbles up the stairs and Kate makes sure she’s comfortably tucked in, bucket still placed conveniently by the bed. She reminds Kate a little of a younger Jamie - kids will be kids, and they all look the same when they’re knocked out in bed, looking peaceful, worries momentarily forgotten.

She goes back downstairs to join Jamie, who’s stretched out on the couch, evidently ready to spend the night on it. He hands Kate’s phone back to her. “She’s still not answering.”

Kate sighs, feeling all her irritation and disapproval of Lisa flooding back - _what_ could Lisa possibly be doing at this hour that’d have her away from her phone? Surely she didn’t go to bed without making sure Frankie was home safe first? “You can sleep if you’re tired,” she tells Jamie. “I’ll keep trying to reach her.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jamie says, waving his half-read car magazine in her direction. He settles comfortably down to keep flipping through it, and Kate keeps calling, and calling.

Lisa _finally_ picks up thirty minutes later, after Kate’s carefully moved all of Frankie’s things to the kitchen to dry out on the counter. She sounds annoyed about the twenty missed calls Kate’s left her; her tone abruptly switches the second she hears why Kate was calling. “I’ll be right over,” she says, and hangs up without another word. Phone etiquette, that’s another thing Kate supposes Lisa’s either never heard of or doesn’t care for.

She turns up at Kate’s ten minutes later, car idling by the gate as she rushes down the path. “Hey,” she greets Kate, looking flustered and concerned. “Sorry, sorry - I was arranging some music for tomorrow, had my earphones in. Didn’t realise how late it was. Where is she? Is she okay?”

“You were arranging music?” Kate asks, unable to stop herself - she’d genuinely thought Lisa was busy drinking or just asleep or something like that. Lisa’d looked more enthusiastic about the choir after last week’s practice and she _had_ said she was going to find them more songs but Kate supposes she hadn’t expected her to be that serious about it, considering precedence. Lisa looks abashed. “Yeah. Sorry. Where - where’s Frankie?”

“She’s in Jamie’s room. We didn’t know when you’d pick up, and we didn’t want her to stay on the couch all night.” Lisa turns into the living room and sees Jamie on the couch in place of Frankie, paging through yet another magazine; he smiles and nods at Lisa. “Hi, Mrs Lawson.”

Lisa nods back, looking unsure and worried; Kate can’t really blame her. She takes the stairs two at a time when Kate shows her up, and Kate sees her breathe a sigh of relief when she sees Frankie safely tucked in bed, under the covers, fast asleep. “Thank goodness. Christ, I’m cutting her allowance starting _now.”_ She sighs, sounding stressed. “Thanks for - helping her out, Kate. Seriously. I’ll just… wake her and get her home, I guess.”

She trails off; they both look at Frankie lying in Jamie’s bed, looking so comfortable. She’s probably going to have a splitting headache in the morning and Kate doesn’t envy her for it. “We _could_ just let her sleep it off,” she offers cautiously. “I can just drive her home tomorrow before practice. If you’re okay with that?”

Lisa still looks uncertain. “How about Jamie? This _is_ his room.”

“He went to Afghanistan,” Kate says drily. “I think he’ll be fine on the couch for a night.”

“Right, yeah. Okay. Okay.” Lisa exhales slowly, looking so frustrated that Kate, despite her annoyance, can’t help but feel some sympathy for her. “Sorry. And really - thanks. I guess she - I don’t know. Guess they just need to let off a bit of steam, sometimes, you know. Kids.”

Kate hums noncommittally and doesn’t say anything else, although she badly wants to. She leads Lisa back downstairs and Lisa waves goodbye to Jamie with a grateful smile. “Thanks, Jamie. Sorry about - yeah. Frankie owes you one.”

“No bother. Have a good night, Mrs Lawson.”

“Just Lisa is fine,” she says, but her smile is less tense this time. “You too. Bye. Bye, Kate. See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kate replies, watching Lisa head off up the path again. She hears the rumble of her car heading back out into the night, back home. It reminds her, strangely, of Richard; she’s not sure why. Kate shakes her head and shuts the door, turning the porch lights off, says goodnight to Jamie and goes upstairs. She checks in one last time on Frankie, makes sure she hasn’t thrown up, and goes to bed.

Kate’s the earliest to rise the next morning - no surprise there; Jamie could sleep until dinnertime if she let him, and Kate can’t imagine Frankie feeling very well the morning after the night before. She goes to the kitchen to brew tea and make some breakfast for the three of them. She imagines they’ll need it. She puts some bread in the toaster, gets the kettle going, gets the jams out, then heads into the living room to prod Jamie awake. “Can you go wake Frankie? She can wash up in our bathroom, get her a toothbrush from under the sink - you know where it is?”

“Mmfgh,” Jamie mumbles, dragging himself off the couch and up the stairs with an effort. Kate rolls her eyes with an indulgent smile and goes back to the kitchen to attend to the toast. She hopes he doesn’t just pass out again on the way up.

Fortunately, two figures appear in the kitchen twenty minutes later, looking relatively awake and alert. Frankie hesitantly takes a seat beside Jamie at the table while Kate serves up some toast and eggs and pours them all some Earl Grey. Jamie spreads some blackberry jam on his toast before handing the jar to Frankie. “Feeling all right this morning?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Frankie says shyly. “Did I - I didn’t puke, did I?”

“No, you were fine. Don’t worry about it.” He nods towards the counter, by the drying rack. “Mum dried your things out, so your stuff is fine too.”

Frankie nods her thanks. “I’m sorry I took your room last night.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay. I remember getting as drunk as that when I was younger,” he says conversationally as Kate sits down with them to eat. “Mum and Dad were well angry. Got my car taken away for three weeks and had to go to the chippy on foot if I so much as wanted some chips.”

“Yeah, well,” Frankie mutters. “It’s not like Mum doesn’t stay home and get pissed all the time when she’s got nothing better to do. Didn’t see why I shouldn’t.”

Kate opens her mouth to say something, but Jamie shoots her a sharp glance and she closes her mouth again. She’s probably too similar to Lisa, in terms of being a maternal authority figure, for anything she wants to say to Frankie sound nothing less than painfully preachy, right now. Maybe Jamie will get through to her a little better. “It’s fun to go out and get plastered once in a while. Until you realise it tends to just end up with you sleeping the night off in a bedroom that isn’t your own and feeling miserable and ill the next day. Your Mum’s not very fun to be around the morning after she gets drunk, is she?”

Frankie snorts, smirking. “She always gets awful headaches. And she gets a little snappy.” She sighs and rubs her forehead. “I know I shouldn’t, I just… you know, a bunch of us were just at the park, and we were talking about how there’s never _anything_ to do on the base, and all our Mums talk about is school and work and the war, and I was… I thought about my Dad, and how Mum’s always so angry at him when he goes away, and she’s angry because she doesn’t want to be scared… I don’t know, it was a lot. I didn’t want to think about it.”

Kate eats in silence, watching Jamie put a comforting hand on Frankie’s shoulder. She wonders if she was ever guilty of that, with Jamie - only talking about school, work, the war. Jamie’s spent his entire life in Flitcroft. Richard’s absences were always so significant - the house quieter, Kate always worrying about him no matter what else was occupying her attention. She knows she was always less cheerful and less expressive while Richard was away - she’d told Richard about that, after his first tour, and he’d admitted he was always stern and serious and unsmiling while deployed in a way he never was at home. _I don’t laugh unless I’m with you,_ he’d said, and the next time he’d been sent on tour she’d kissed him as he left and said - _until we laugh again._

 _Until I laugh again,_ he’d agreed, and it’d become their words, a sort of reassurance, a promise. That he’d come back, and Kate would be reminded of how to smile, how to be happy.

She can smile now, but it doesn’t feel exactly the same.

“Are you done with breakfast, Mum? Don’t you have practice in half an hour?”

“What?” Jamie’s voice snaps Kate out of her thoughts; she realises she hasn’t touched her eggs or toast and Jamie’s right that she has to be at the welfare centre in thirty minutes. “Oh, God. And I’ve got to drop Frankie off. Just give me five minutes, I’ll be done.”

“Have you got practice today?” Frankie asks. “Mum didn’t say.”

“Yes,” Kate replies slowly, a thought suddenly popping into her head. Hmm - maybe, just maybe… “Frankie, have you got any plans today?”

“Plans? No. Why?”

“Would you mind terribly coming to practice with me? It’s just that we really need somebody to mind the children - they’re a little bit of a distraction, sometimes, when we’re all trying to get on with singing. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“Oh, oh yeah,” Frankie says, looking startled but nodding. “Sure, yeah, alright. I can do that.”

“If you’re good with children they should pay you to watch the kids when we go for the hike on the moors tomorrow,” Jamie adds. Frankie looks at him curiously. “Are you going for that too?”

“Yeah, some exercise sounds good to me. The moors are lovely too. But I gather that’s not your idea of a good time?”

Frankie laughs, shaking her head. “But I wouldn’t mind watching the kids.”

Kate smiles, pleased. “That’s wonderful. Thank you, Frankie. Then that’s settled, and we can all head off to practice. Jamie, are you taking the car?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to go into town. I’ll drop you both off.”

“Perfect. Just let me get my things.”

Practice doesn’t go as well as the previous time around. Kate observes Frankie and Lisa’s little tiff off to the side of the room before Frankie goes to mind the children, and Lisa’s annoyance obviously bleeds into the way she encourages the choir and takes them in a direction Kate really doesn’t think they should be following.

They end up squabbling about it, all goodwill from the previous night dissipating into the wind. “They’re having fun,” Lisa snaps, and Kate wants to bite back _it’s not about fun!_ but the words falter a little. It’s not that she doesn’t want the choir to enjoy what they’re doing - of _course_ she does; they’ve all already got misery and worry and anxiety on their minds every single moment of the day and god forbid the choir _add_ to it instead of mitigate it. But it’s so much more than just plain simple _enjoyment_ and she doesn’t know how to explain that to Lisa in ways she can understand. Or in ways the _choir_ will understand.

She can’t stop thinking about it that night, occupied by the frustration even while hiking through the moors. It’s quite a pleasant walk, until the rain starts pouring it down and they all rush for cover under the bridge - a great big space, all old brick covered in moss and mildew, and when they call out, when they speak loudly enough, it echoes.

When they sing, it echoes.

Annie starts singing the opening lines of Only You. Soft, at first, but with some encouragement she’s belting the next line out. Jess follows, and then suddenly they’re all having an impromptu choir practice right there, in the rain, under the bridge. And it sounds _incredible._

And then Jess starts singing the second verse, and suddenly everyone else falls silent. Her voice is rich and wonderful and Kate stares, wondering how they never heard it before. Lisa grins at her, gesturing at Jess, eyebrows raised. _That’s something,_ her expression says. And it _is._

Jess trails off after realising everyone else has gone quiet, just marveling at her voice. The couple just outside the bridge, who’ve been listening appreciatively, clap and cheer. Everyone clusters around Jess when they head back to the coach, but Lisa hangs back with Kate and Jamie. Her eyes are bright, reminding Kate of that practice where they first sang Only You too. Kate’d been thinking it, but Lisa says it first. “Maybe this choir isn’t about singing for ourselves. It’s about them being heard.”

“A performance,” says Jamie, before Kate can reply. Lisa nods eagerly. “Exactly. But nothing fancy, you know. Maybe just in town, somewhere that’ll let us sing. That’ll want to hear us sing.”

“I don’t know,” Kate starts, slowly - there’s a lot of responsibility, of obligation, in a real performance, and wherever they might go, they’d be representing not just the choir but also the garrison. That’s a lot to think about, and just yesterday they were bare inches off massacring Shout. But Jamie squeezes her shoulder and looks almost as excited as Lisa. “Mum, it’s a _great_ idea. You keep saying you all need something to focus on, and a performance would be _perfect._ Think about it! A specific goal to work towards. One with actual stakes.”

Lisa shoots Jamie a grateful smile. “Come on, Kate. Don’t you think it’d be good for them? For _us?”_

“I just don’t know if we’re ready - “

“We don’t need to do it _now._ We can _be_ ready - we can put in the work, we can get better, and then we can get out there and perform. Why not?” Kate doesn’t respond, and Lisa gently bumps her shoulder, looking pleading. “Kate, come on. I need you with me on this.”

Kate raises her eyebrows, giving Lisa a slightly incredulous look; Lisa just laughs. “We both know you’re the organised one here. If anyone can figure out how to get us booked for a performance and then whip the choir into good enough shape to do it well, it’s you.”

“You’ll follow my lead?” Kate asks before she can really think about it. Lisa smiles at her, warm and genuine, but with a little more in her eyes that Kate can’t put her finger on. “Yeah,” she says, her voice a little softer. “I’ll follow your lead.”

And Kate finds herself saying - “Okay. Let’s do it.”

It takes weeks, months. Kate knows she’s right that they’re not ready, not then, and she’s pretty sure the choir’s in agreement. But once the idea is floated, she and Lisa see the change immediately. There’s a different vibe at practices, a kind of seriousness and commitment that Kate was hoping for from the beginning. Lisa keeps her word, mostly - following Kate’s lead doesn’t mean that anything Kate says goes; Lisa quite flatly doesn’t defer to Kate when she thinks Kate’s going about things the wrong way and more often than not, Kate realises after some reflection that Lisa’s right. But working together becomes easier. The days pass and Kate realises, slowly, that Lisa is dedicated and passionate and willing to give her all to something, so long as she sees value in that ‘something’. And she’s far, far better at singing and playing and arrangement than she let on.

“We’re a good team,” she tells Kate after a particularly good practice, an excellent arrangement of Time After Time. She’s grinning, packing up her keyboard right in the rays of the sunlight streaming through the windows; her hair is wheat-gold in the light and the smile she gives Kate makes Kate want to smile back, unbidden. “I think we are.”

“Think we’ll be ready for a performance soon?”

“Yes,” Kate decides. “Let’s figure this out.”

There’s a box at the market that will take performers, Kate discovers. Jamie tells her about it, even shows her pictures. She sends some emails to the relevant personnel and the long and short of it is, as she tells Lisa, that yes, they can book a date to sing there. It’s not much - just one song, really - but it’s a start. It’s more than Kate expected from that very first coffee morning.

They arrange for two practices a week instead of one for the three weeks leading up to the performance. At the first practice on the second week, Crooks storms into the room halfway through a rendition of Time After Time. “I need to speak to you all!”

“Oh, Jesus,” says Annie. “Is it about the blow-up doll that we sent Sebastian?”

The rest of the wives giggle; Kate can’t hide her smile, even though she really should. Crooks looks bewildered and Lisa rolls her eyes. “She’s _joking._ What is it?”

Crooks doesn’t let up with his serious face. “Brigadier Groves heard you rehearsing when he was here a few weeks ago, and he's told the top brass.”

Kate feels her amused smile wiping itself off her face. She exchanges a slightly panicked glance with Lisa, who shrugs, brows furrowed. Surely they haven’t done anything wrong, have they - maybe the scheduled performance? The military’s never liked the wives being tall poppies, but Kate thought, they all thought -

“And you’ve been invited to sing at the Festival of Remembrance.”

Silence. Kate _swears_ her heart stops right then and there. Lisa looks like she’s been knocked off her feet. _“What?”_

“The Festival of Remembrance? On TV?” Jess says, apparently the only one of the choir who hasn’t been rendered utterly speechless. “The big one? At the Royal Albert Hall?”

Crooks nods; they all see the smile beginning to appear on his face, and Kate watches it settle on the women, the shock and joy and delighted disbelief spreading through the room. Practice is suddenly forgotten, in favour of the wives talking nineteen to the dozen about being invited to the _Festival of Remembrance._ Kate looks at Lisa, and Lisa looks back.

“Are we really ready for this?” Lisa asks, looking suddenly uncertain, such an foreign thing to see. Her hands are still over the keys on her keyboard, bottom lip pulled between her teeth. Kate wonders the same thing, honestly - the Festival of Remembrance _is_ the ‘big one’, and they can’t afford to falter up there. Not on that level.

But they _have_ been getting better - so much better. Sometimes Jamie and some of his other fellow enlistees drop by to listen, and Kate can _see_ how impressed they are - they’re never afraid to say it. Lisa said they were a good team, and Kate agreed, and she still does.

“I recall someone saying we didn’t have to _be_ ready, but we _could_ be, if we put in the work,” she eventually replies. The corners of Lisa’s mouth turn up and she tilts her head in silent acknowledgment. Kate gestures mildly at the excited women. “You’re _really_ going to tell them to turn down singing at the Albert Hall?”

“Nah. Don’t want to get murdered,” Lisa laughs. “Okay, Kate. The Albert Hall it is.”

“The _Albert Hall,”_ Jamie says, sounding awestruck. He’d come by the welfare centre to pick Kate up after practice and he’d seen all the women chattering excitedly about it and wondered what was going on. He’s at Dave’s wheel now driving her home, dropping Lisa off on the way. “That is _incredible._ I mean, _I_ used to dream of performing there when I was a kid, when I grew up to be a famous guitarist touring the world with my band.”

“Were you into music, Jamie? As a kid? I didn’t know that,” says Lisa. Jamie grins back at her through the rearview mirror. “Yeah, my Dad played guitar casually as a teenager, and he passed his guitar on to me, and I got really into it.”

“He used to provide the live entertainment when I hosted the occasional dinner party,” Kate adds. “I think I’ve still got that video of you doing Last Christmas when your grandparents came over.”

“Oh God, Mum, don’t - _burn_ that tape, it was _awful.”_

Lisa laughs, but she looks wistful. “I played the piano a lot, when I was younger. Always thought I might go on to pursue it professionally.”

Jamie frowns. “Why didn’t you?”

“Well, I had Frankie, and then I moved here with Red, and it just stopped being an option, I suppose. Not if I wanted to put her through school and everything.” There’s an odd note to her voice, and she darts a very quick glance towards Kate, one Kate almost misses. “I guess I got a second chance, sort of, thanks to the choir.”

Kate smiles at her, feeling suddenly fond. She’d never expected to work this well with Lisa and it’s nice, to keep seeing these sides of her that Kate didn’t see before. They _are_ a good team, and maybe, just maybe, even friends. She hasn’t had friends in a long time, not really - her whole life wrapped up in Jamie, and Richard, and even at work she’d never made any connections. She’s never felt lonely because she had her son and Jamie’s always been enough, always will be, but she thinks she forgot how nice it could be to have people she can laugh with and enjoy spending time with. She hopes Lisa feels the same.

Jamie takes off to Windermere two days before the market performance for a friend’s wedding; he tells Kate he’ll be back in a week and wishes her luck for the performance. “Not that you’ll need it, I’m sure you’ll all do great!”

As it turns out, they very much do need it and are unfortunately in short supply of it that afternoon. The performance ends up resembling an inflated balloon being popped and slowly oozing out its air. The choir sits together at the rooftop of a little bar in town drinking their sorrows away and generally being miserable, and if she’s being honest Kate feels much the same way. She’d had such high hopes, and they’d been doing so well, and now it all just feels like they’ve been thrown right back to square one.

And then Lisa ends up surprising her - she’s been doing that, again and again, every time making Kate wonder how she ever had such a bad impression of her at the beginning. Lisa ends up being the one to make an earnest, sincere little speech that brings morale up almost instantly. It touches something in Kate’s heart, too, and when Lisa asks her how they should go about doing better, moving forward from the disaster of a performance, to become a choir good enough for the Albert Hall, she manages to find an answer.

But she thinks about that, even hours after, going over the moment again and again. At their lowest, the choir looked to Lisa. And Lisa looked to her.

The choir elects not to go back to Flitcroft after lunch and drinks, but to go downstairs and do karaoke. Kate figures they need something to raise their spirits after the performance, so why not?

All the grace and elegance the choir carries with them when they’re practicing absolutely does not shine through while they do karaoke. Maz does some ridiculous spin on World In Motion that has the rest of the wives on their feet cheering like they’re watching the footie. Kate brings wine and beer over to a laughing Lisa, shaking her head as she watches Maz in her element. “Behold our choir. Dignified, noble… with class…” Kate laughs into her wineglass, holding back her snorts. Lisa pushes her hair back and grins at her. “What would your karaoke song be?”

“Oh, God, no. Karaoke’s my idea of _hell.”_

“No, no! If you _had_ to. If you had no choice.”

Lisa looks so genuinely interested, grinning wide, caught up in the atmosphere of the night, and she finds herself responding, giving things away to her. “Well, I - I mean, I did do Tainted Love, once. But then I drank two bottles of white wine, and smoked a pack of cigarettes, and I threw up in the bushes outside Richard’s apartment.” She finds herself laughing a little as she says it - it _is_ an amusing memory now, years later, when the horrible hangover and wrecked throat are no longer as clear in her mind. She just remembers being more than a little drunk, dueting Tainted Love _horribly_ with Richard in that bar near the campus, their friends cheering them on. They’d all sat outside the bar after, chain-smoking and laughing about the most idiotic, nonsensical things and she’d been leaned up against Richard the whole time. He’d helped her back to his dorm - although to be more accurate they probably just stumbled back together and somehow kept each other on their feet - and held her hair back while she’d expelled the entire contents of her stomach into the bushes a few metres from his doorstep, then they’d both collapsed on the living room floor and been found by his roommates the morning after. They’d laughed their heads off and then dragged Richard into the kitchen so all three of them could make Kate pancakes for breakfast. Richard’d found some way to make them in the shape of a heart and claimed the last of the strawberries in the apartment fridge to stick on top of her stack. That was the day she’d decided she was going to marry him, and then three months later, he was her husband.

It was so long ago, Kate realises. She hasn’t eaten pancakes in years, and Kate’s always been the one to make breakfast ever since Jamie was born. Jamie’s never liked heart-shaped pancakes and Kate’s never wanted to make them for herself. And Tainted Love - she hasn’t listened to it since -

Since -

“Sounds like a good night,” Lisa says, one hand on Kate’s upper arm; she’s getting up, grinning. “So, Tainted Love?”

Kate blinks, suddenly thrown back into the present. “What? Oh, no - Lisa - no, no.”

“No, come on! I’ll do it with you! Imagine their faces, come on, nobody’s going to remember this in the morning.” Her smile is real and wide and she pushes through the wives to get to the karaoke machine, queue the song up, and for a moment - just a moment - Kate imagines it, letting herself be dragged on stage to sing with Lisa by her side.

 _The love we share seems to go nowhere -_ she remembers singing that, twenty-odd years ago, in a completely different part of the country, in a completely different bar. And there’d been a part of her, looking at Richard belting out the rest of the words, completely drunk, wondering if he’d still want to be with her the next morning, when they were both sober in the light of day.

Some days she still wonders -

The image of Lisa singing those words instead of Richard flashes through Kate’s mind and suddenly the walls of the bar seems to close in on her, everything too loud and too bright. Her head hurts; she doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to go on that stage and sing. She just needs some air.

She doesn’t expect Lisa to follow her out, isn’t sure if she wants her to, but she smiles, hesitantly, when she appears, shutting the side door behind her. “I wasn’t trying to be pushy,” she says, sounding apologetic, and Kate can’t… turn her away. “I just needed some air.”

There’s a second where they sit and stand where they are, uncertain, then Lisa seems to make a decision and walks determinedly over to the bench where Kate’s seated and joins her, leaving a few inches of space between them. She just waits, patient, like she knows Kate has words buried inside her that could come out but she won’t force her into saying them. Kate takes a few deep breaths, leaning her head back against the wall. “I sang that with Richard, two months after we started seeing each other. We were honestly wasted, it was awful. But after that we walked - well, practically crawled - back to his apartment together and then he made me pancakes for breakfast, and that was when I knew I was going to marry him. And I did.” She sighs, still not looking at Lisa. “I was listening to that song while doing the ironing when I got the call, on his fourth tour. I could still hear it when they were telling me what happened.”

“He was injured?”

“Yeah. Badly - not career-ending, not fatal, but it could’ve been. He was in the hospital for half a month.” Kate pauses, exhaling through clenched teeth. The memory’s not a happy one.

“Jesus,” Lisa murmurs. “I didn’t know. God, Kate, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to dredge all this up.”

Kate shakes her head. “It’s fine,” she says. She flexes her fingers in her lap, inhaling and feeling the cold air whistle between her lips. Everything - the choir, today’s performance, Flitcroft, Jamie - feels so distant, somehow, like the night has frozen and it’s just her and Lisa, Kate talking about things she hasn’t let herself think about in a long time. “It’s stupid, you know? There’s this - there’s something Richard says to me, every time he goes - _until we laugh again._ He came back after his first tour and I told him how quiet the house was without him, how hard it was to smile, and he told me it was the same for him when he was deployed. Like he only really felt happy, only really laughed, when he was with me. So he said that, right before he left for his second tour, and his third, and his fourth… it was so hard to laugh for so long, when he came back like that.”

They stay quiet for a long minute, but Lisa inches a little closer and puts an arm around Kate, slowly, giving her time to move away. She doesn’t, just leans into Lisa and appreciates the warmth. It’s been a while since she’s just been able to sit with another human being like this, held, listened to. She rests her head against Lisa’s shoulder and looks up at the night sky. “Jamie was eighteen, that year. Just a year older than Frankie. He’d been starting to consider enlisting, be just like his Dad. After Richard came back injured I begged him to leave the army and to talk Jamie out of enlisting and he said no.” Kate feels familiar anger, called back from years ago, rising back up in her throat, white-hot in her chest. She takes a few slow, deep breaths so it doesn’t come spilling out; she and Lisa are friends now but Kate doesn’t think Lisa needs to know that she might love Richard but she’s never really forgiven him for that. “Do you ever - do you ever just wonder how different things would be if our husbands weren’t in the army? If they hadn’t enlisted?”

“Or if we hadn’t married them,” Lisa says, so softly Kate almost doesn’t hear her. “Yeah. I think about it sometimes.”

Kate turns to look at Lisa, their eyes meeting. The question wavers on the tip of her tongue; it takes her a minute to gather the courage to ask it. “Do you _regret_ marrying Red?”

Lisa keeps looking at her, seconds longer, not answering. She only speaks again when she looks away, deliberately breaking her gaze. “Not all the time.” Neutral, flat, like it’s just a simple fact. “Do you? With Richard?”

“No,” says Kate, after a pause, and she’s not really sure whether or not she’s lying.

They lapse back into silence, just sitting there until they hear the muffled sounds of Tainted Love coming onto the karaoke machine. Lisa laughs and shakes her head, gently easing her arm away from Kate and getting up, pulling her coat tighter around her. “You want to head back to the garrison? I’ll walk with you.”

“Sounds good,” says Kate, and follows.

It’s not that she doesn’t love Richard. It’s not that she looks at him and doesn’t still see that boy who proposed to her in her dorm room with a hundred-pound ring five months into their relationship and promised her forever. It’s just that he left her, he keeps leaving her, he’s been leaving her and coming back over and over and then so did her son, and she’s just - she’s older now, and she’s so _tired._ She’s so tired of having to watch them go and wait for them to come back. Leaving, over and over again.

One week after the market performance, he leaves her for the very last time.

Jamie’s only been back from Windermere for a day; he’s showing her photos of the wedding and laughing over the cake smashed in the groom’s face when the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” he says, still laughing, halfway through recounting how his poor friend got half the wedding cake all over his tuxedo, apparently. He darts to the front door, pulling it open, evidently still trying to regain his composure, and then suddenly - silence. “Jamie?” Kate calls. “What is it? Who’s at the door?”

“Mrs Kate Barkley?” Kate hears, and her entire body goes cold. “Sir, are you Private James Barkley?”

“Yes,” Jamie replies, barely a whisper. Kate moves towards the front door like she’s in a dream, already knowing what she’s going to see. Two men in pressed suits with grave expressions bringing bad news, the worst news they can get, news she’s always been prepared to receive, at the back of her mind -

“Can we come in?” One of them asks, and Kate nods numbly. Lets them pass the threshold and say the words that will shatter her at their feet.

She doesn’t remember much after that. She knows Jamie cries, and screams, but she doesn’t. She can’t. She thinks Lisa comes over with Frankie in tow, that Frankie hugs a sobbing Jamie and doesn’t let go until he can breathe again. Someone cooks food, breakfasts and lunches and dinners - Kate can’t tell, it all tastes the same. Some people come over to discuss funeral arrangements and Kate blinks vaguely through it all and doesn’t respond.

Three, maybe four days after she gets the news, Kate isn’t sure, Sarah turns up at their front door. She hugs Jamie and sits on the couch between him and Kate and leans into Kate’s side and says, “Liam isn’t coming home.”

It takes Kate a moment; she’s been so out of it, the world so unreal the past few days, that she hadn’t even realised someone other than Richard had been killed in action. She remembers going over to Sarah’s place with Jamie, those months ago when their men had just reached Afghanistan but comms were already down, taking her mind off things until they’d gotten notice that comms were back up. Sarah’s young, almost painfully so, as young as Kate was the first time Richard had been deployed, and he’d come back from his first tour, but Liam didn’t.

It takes an effort, her heart so, so heavy, but Kate manages to draw Sarah into her arms and hug her tight. “Sarah. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, and they just hold each other up for a very long time.

The choir sings at Liam’s service - Ave Maria, the song Sarah and Liam were listening to when they first fell in love, apparently. Kate’s certain they do the song beautifully but she doesn’t hear any of it - she wakes up the day of Liam’s service and can’t get out of bed, she just can’t, not when she knows Richard’s is the next day.

They don’t sing at Richard’s service. She and Richard never really had a song besides Tainted Love and the idea of having the choir sing _that_ as they’re bearing his coffin into the church is horrific and hysterical in equal measure and makes Kate want to either laugh herself to lunacy or throw up on her feet. They stand quietly in the pews behind her in the church and Kate can’t stop thinking about how she’d been waiting for him to come home so she could show him what she and Lisa had accomplished with the choir. She wonders if he even read about the Albert Hall in her aerogramme, before - before. She’ll never know. Neither will he.

All the wives gather around her at the reception after, offering hugs and sympathy that feels genuine and warm rather than pitying and Kate accepts it because she doesn’t know what else to do. She’s still so numb, like Richard’s heart stopping made hers stop too and now she can’t feel a thing.

 _Until_ after, when they’re all walking away from the church, heading home. Lisa walks her, Jamie and Sarah to her car to drive them all home, but stops before she unlocks the doors and lets them in. “Hey, Kate, Sarah. Listen, the choir - we decided that we’re going to pull out of the Festival of Remembrance.”

Kate blinks slowly. The words take a while to really filter in and make sense to Kate, and she stares at Lisa, still uncomprehending. Sarah’s the one to speak, looking as shocked as Kate feels. “What? _Why?”_

Lisa shifts uncomfortably. “It’s in a _month,_ and - they didn’t - _we_ didn’t want you and Kate to have to worry about this, to go up there and sing for entertainment after - “

“The Festival of Remembrance isn’t _entertainment,”_ Kate interrupts, each succeeding word leaving her mouth at louder volume. “And it would be utterly inappropriate for us to pull out now. Lisa, if we - do you understand that if we pull out now - do you know how badly it would reflect upon all of us? Do you - “

“Mum,” Jamie suddenly says, and pulls her back with a quick apology to Lisa and Sarah. He puts his hands on her shoulders, makes her turn to face him. “Mum, calm down. Don’t shout at her. Just calm down.”

“Jamie, you don’t understand. We absolutely cannot afford to - “

“I know,” he says, firmly enough to make Kate stop halfway through her sentence. “But you need to stop shouting at Lisa. The choir’s not doing this because they don’t understand how important the performance is, and you know it. They’re doing this because they care about you. Don’t - you can’t hate them for making that decision. You know it.”

Kate fights back frustrated tears, because she does - Jamie’s right, he’s always right. The choir cares about them, Lisa cares about them - Lisa cares about her. She nods shakily and lets Jamie pull her close. Sarah and Lisa watch them, Lisa looking sad and apologetic and torn, but Sarah - Sarah suddenly sets her jaw and shakes her head. “No. Kate’s right. I know the choir’s trying to be considerate and kind but we _can’t_ pull out. You all sang so beautifully at Liam’s service, _Lisa_ \- “

“Sarah, that was for you. We did that for _you._ That was _personal_ \- “

“Then _make_ it personal! Kate’s right! The Festival of Remembrance isn’t entertainment. There are going to be so many people watching us and listening to us who are going to be - like me and Kate, and Jamie. I want to do this for them. But I can’t do it on my own.”

Kate swallows hard and fiercely holds back the tears pricking at her eyes. Jamie sighs softly, nodding and grasping Sarah’s shoulder; she smiles gratefully back at him. Lisa exhales and raises a hand to her forehead. “Okay. Let’s talk about it at the next practice. For now - let me get you all home, yeah?”

Lisa drives them back in silence. They drop Sarah off, then Lisa stops the car outside Kate’s house and gets out, going to Kate’s side as she exits the car. “Kate, listen, we didn’t mean to - you know we really - we care about you. We love you,” she says, her voice wavering. “I’m sorry. We just wanted to do right by you and Sarah.”

Kate feels the lump in her throat returning; exhaustion crests over her and she doesn’t want to talk about this, doesn’t want to stand here and look at Lisa’s tremulous expression and her deep green eyes and the soft waves of her hair over her shoulders. She just wants to lie down and sleep. She doesn’t answer, can’t, just nods jerkily and says a quick thank you for driving them home. She turns away to head down the path, join Jamie where he’s waiting for her to open the front door. Lisa doesn’t call her name as she goes, and Kate doesn’t look back to say goodbye.

Somehow or another, Kate’s not completely sure how, she feels emotionally stable enough to attend the next choir practice when it comes around. She still feels hollow and empty and detached but every new day dawns and time ticks forward and life moves on and she has to with it. What other option is there?

Jamie accompanies her to the practice. She knows he’s worried about her, especially after the whole incident with Lisa and Sarah, so she lets him. He watches, quietly, while Lisa and the wives talking about writing an original song, about using their letters as material and inspiration. Kate watches Lisa sit there in front of her keyboard, earnest and determined, and she just feels - angry, even though she doesn’t know who she’s angry at or why. It’s just pure unadulterated anger sitting like a stone in her chest, weighing her down. It makes her say cutting, cruel things she doesn’t mean, and Lisa - kind as she is, loyal as she is - gives way to her even though Kate knows this time that she’s wrong.

The wives stand up for Lisa, and Kate relents without much of a fight. Lisa requests the women bring their letters to the next practice so they can brainstorm some inspiration. Jamie pulls Kate to the side while the wives file out. “Mum, what’s going on with you? Why did you say all that to Lisa?” He looks so confused and disappointed and it doesn’t do anything to quell the unexplained rage still knocking about inside her. “Look, I know you’re still hurting over Dad - I _know,_ I am too, but that doesn’t give you the right to be _cruel._ Do you really think Dad would have wanted to see you like this?”

“What do you know about what your father wanted, Jamie?” Kate snaps, far more harshly than she intends, and it’s testament to how good Jamie is, how much better he is as a person than she is, that he doesn’t even flinch or raise his voice one decibel. “I _know_ he wouldn’t have wanted to see you saying things you don’t mean to _your friend_ just because you’re in pain. You can’t take it away by inflicting it upon other people, Mum, you can’t - “

“Jamie,” says Lisa, abruptly, coming up to them, and Jamie stops. “It’s all right. Will you just give me a second with your Mum?”

Jamie sighs, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” he says, and heads out. Lisa just looks at Kate, expression blank and neutral, and Kate can feel it, just building and building inside her, red and hot and making her shake - something she doesn’t have _words_ for, something she can’t pinpoint. She’s just so, so _angry,_ for all the stupidest reasons - angry at Jamie for what he said, even though it was all true; angry at the choir for taking Lisa’s side even though she was right; angry at Richard for dying and leaving her behind to carry the weight; angry at Lisa for - for being good and generous and giving and better than Kate could ever be and -

“Kate,” Lisa says softly, and in that single word, her name, Kate hears nothing and a hundred things all at once. Lisa steps forward and wraps her arms around Kate and holds her, just holds her, doesn’t say anything more. All at once the anger just disappears and is replaced by one breathless thought that almost knocks all the air out of Kate’s lungs - a revelation, the scales falling from her eyes and leaving things so clear she doesn’t know how she never saw it before.

 _I’m in love with her,_ Kate thinks - widowed just two weeks and mother to her grown son and Lisa is her friend, her married friend with a still-breathing husband in Afghanistan and a daughter, a family, and this can’t happen, she knows it, what she wants can’t happen, it can’t.

But Lisa is warm and her arms hold Kate tight and Kate just keeps hugging her back and doesn’t let go.

They have less than a month to the Albert Hall and Kate finds Lisa increasingly directing the choir instead of her. It makes sense in light of both what happened to Richard and the fact that Lisa’s their songwriter and in order to sing an original song for the Festival of Remembrance they’ve got to have one written first. Lisa takes point, collating letters and phrases, practicing the tune on her keyboard over and over so the wives familiarise themselves even before she writes the lyrics. Kate just watches and watches. This Lisa is so different from the one she thought she knew when they first started working together and there’s so much about her that Kate has learned to love.

She loves Lisa and she hates herself. Hates that she could allow herself to fall for someone else mere weeks after her husband died - no, if she’s being honest, even before that, while he was still in Afghanistan. Hates that she wasn’t sure if she regretted marrying Richard when Lisa asked her, but when she thinks about Lisa she knows without a doubt she doesn’t regret letting herself feel this way.

Lisa drops by her place every other day on the pretext of working on the upcoming performance, settling logistical issues beyond the song, but Kate knows it’s an excuse to check up on her and she hates that she wishes it was more than that. Lisa sits on her couch with laptop and papers strewn across her coffee table, chewing her pens, pushing her hair back, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand when she’s thinking - tiny movements that Kate catalogues, that make her stomach sink.

One night, the very week of the performance, they reach for the same sheet of paper at the same time and their hands brush; Kate pulls away like she’s been burned, her heart pounding. Lisa pauses, hand hovering over the paper, turns to Kate inquisitively. Her voice shakes a little when she speaks and Kate could swear she hears _hope._ “Kate?” She whispers, uncertain, asking so many questions without putting them in words, but Kate can’t, she can’t - her husband was killed fighting a war, the same one Lisa’s husband is still involved in and they just can’t -

“Maybe you should go,” Kate says quietly, and she sees Lisa’s face fall and there are words on her lips, almost spoken, Kate can see them - _don’t, Kate, please, I want to stay, I want to stay here with you_ \- but they don’t come. Slowly Lisa packs her things, slings her bag over her shoulder, walks to the front door. “See you on the day, Kate.”

And then she’s gone, and Kate is left alone with nothing but her own thoughts and regrets in a silent house until Jamie gets back from town.

Kate goes into town on her own the evening before the Albert Hall and buys the first venue-appropriate, non-budget-breaking black dress she sees. She shows it off to Jamie, who gives her a thumbs-up. “You look beautiful, Mum. The Albert Hall won’t know what hit it.”

“Thank you, darling. Although I hope our singing is what impresses the Albert Hall moreso than my dress.”

Jamie laughs (and Kate is so, so glad he still remembers how to, because she’s not sure she does any longer). “The choir’s going to kill it. You’ll be amazing.”

“I don’t know,” Kate murmurs. “I just worry. Our last proper performance was at the market, and everyone knows how _that_ went.”

Jamie takes her hands in his, squeezes gently. “You’ve all been working hard. You told me that yourself. It’s going to be fine,” he says, and Kate tries to believe it. “It’s going to be perfect.”

The next day swings around, Kate putting on her game face and dragging her bag and dress all the way down to the coach. She can see Lisa handing out lyric sheets, the song evidently _finally_ ready mere hours before they get on stage, and Kate takes a deep breath and repeats Jamie’s words in her head. _It’s going to be fine._

Only he’s wrong, dead wrong, for the first time in the longest time. Lisa passes the sheets to the other wives, clustered nearby, and Kate hears Annie, reading from the paper. “Who’s this, then? ’Til we laugh again’?”

Blood suddenly rushing in Kate’s ears, drowning everything out, a chill running down her spine. She feels cold, despite her coat. There are murmurs around her, the other wives, talking about the change, and she looks at Lisa handing the sheets out, looks at Lisa, can’t stop _looking._ That night, in town, outside the bar. Her head on Lisa’s shoulder, telling Lisa things she’d never told Richard, never told Jamie. Her heart laid bare for Lisa and _God,_ how was she so stupid? How did she not know? And how could she - _I trusted you,_ Kate thinks. Richard is dead, and he told her years ago he didn’t know how to laugh without her by his side and Kate said the same but she’s _been_ laughing, and smiling and enjoying herself and she’s been _happy,_ because of the choir, because of Lisa, without him, until he left her, and now it feels like she’ll never know how to be happy any more, and certainly not with Lisa, who’s so close and yet so fucking far away -

“I wanted to clear it with you first, I just ran out of time, and - and there was a gap, and everyone else has something in the song, Kate, and I just thought, maybe - it might help you to sing about him,” says Lisa, and Kate wants to scream, suddenly wants to hit her, wants to shove her to the ground, wants to pull her in and kiss her, all of it. It all just explodes inside her, all at once - the fury, the frustration, the hatred, all of it directed to herself but she doesn’t know how, and Lisa’s right there in front of her and it all just comes flooding out. “I told you that in confidence. Not so you could use my dead husband’s words to fill a _gap_ in your crass, sentimental ballad.” She crushes the sheet in her hand, shoves it back to Lisa, and she can hear Jamie’s voice in her head, _you can’t be cruel, you can’t hurt people just because you’re hurting,_ but it’s drowned out by everything else and suddenly she’s saying things about Lisa she doesn’t mean, things about Frankie that she doesn’t deserve. She drags Frankie into it and says horrible things, heartless and untrue, each and every one, and it’s low and it’s disgusting, and she does it because Lisa’s too fucking good for her, always has been and Kate just never knew it, and she wants to hate her but doesn’t know how. Doesn’t think she can.

And Lisa - Lisa can give as good as she gets, Kate knows that, always has. She hurls Kate’s cruel words back at her and Kate feels them like daggers clean through the flesh. “You’re a cold-hearted, uptight _bitch,_ Kate,” she yells. “You need to stop playing the fucking martyred widow and loving wife when you didn’t even _want_ to be his wife any longer!”

Kate feels her heart stopping in her chest, mostly from the truth of it. Lisa keeps going, relentless. “You know what? The bloody choir was _your_ idea. You gave me all that bullshit about the women needing it, that it would bring them together, when really, _you_ were the one who needed the choir, Kate, because you needed to lead something, to _control_ something, to be looked to, you needed them to respect you and listen to you and love you because you couldn’t handle your husband loving the war more than _he loved you!”_

Something seems to rent asunder in her chest, a pain Kate’s never felt and didn’t know she could survive standing. She stumbles blindly towards the baggage compartment and takes her things and leaves, walking back home. She can’t breathe. She doesn’t remember how and she’s not sure if she ever will.

She stumbles into Dave when she gets back home because she can’t handle walking back through the front door, seeing photo frames on sidetables and ledges and walls, so many of them with Richard’s face looking back at her. She presses her forehead against the steering wheel and cries - cries like she hasn’t in years; she didn’t even cry at Richard’s service and it feels stupid that she is now, but she can’t stop.

A few taps come from the passenger seat window on the other side. Kate looks up to see Jamie on the other side of the door, looking concerned. “Mum. Can I come in?”

She hesitates briefly before nodding; she doesn’t want her son to see her like this but she doesn’t want to turn him away and make him worry even more. Jamie slips into the seat beside her and closes the door softly. She tries, mostly in vain, to compose herself; Jamie just reaches across to take her hand. “What happened? I thought you were heading to London.”

Kate shakes her head. “The choir’s left.”

“What happened?” He sounds so gentle. Her son, her boy, kind and warmhearted and he reminds her more of Lisa than of Richard, right now, because she doesn’t deserve her and she doesn’t deserve Jamie either. Kate chokes on a sob and tries to keep her voice steady. “Lisa - used something your Dad said - in - in her song. Something I told her. She didn’t ask me.” She runs a hand over her face and it comes away wet. “And she said - she said your Dad loved the war more than he loved me.”

There’s a very long silence. Kate sees Jamie’s mouth go tight around the edges, his free hand folding into a loose fist. There’s a rigidity to his posture and a dullness to his eyes that’s so different from his usual self. “Well. Was she wrong?”

Kate stares at him, not sure if she heard him right. _“What?”_

“Was she wrong,” he repeats flatly. His gaze is a little unfocused, looking straight ahead and not at Kate. “Do you remember asking me a while ago what I knew about what Dad wanted? Well, trust me, I did know.”

“Jamie, what do you mean?”

“Dad was deployed on this tour,” Jamie says. “But even if he hadn’t been, he would have volunteered. Because he didn’t know how to be a civilian any more, or as good as, living on the base. Because he couldn’t figure out how to find value outside of the warzone and he was more willing to risk his life halfway around the world than fight to figure out how to be a person back home again. That’s what he told me before he left.”

And Kate knows, without question, that he’s telling the truth. Jamie doesn’t lie to her and especially not in this. And maybe, just maybe, she knew it too. _Until we laugh again,_ Richard used to say, but she thinks back now, and she doesn’t remember him laughing for so very long now. Not even when he was by her side.

Maybe it’s what she deserves, Kate thinks. Richard loved the war more than he loved her, and Kate thinks she loves Lisa more than she ever loved him.

“I behaved so badly,” she says instead. “I actually - I threw my shoes on the ground like you would when you were two. And I was so cruel to Lisa, I said such awful things.”

“You tend to do that,” Jamie says mildly. “Why?”

Kate knows exactly why, knows she’s a terrible person for it. She doesn’t answer, just covers her face with a hand and doesn’t look at Jamie. “Do you hate me for falling in love with her? Even while your Dad was still alive and in Afghanistan?”

Jamie just gives her this smile, soft, understanding, impossibly compassionate. “I love Dad,” he says softly. “I love Dad even though he looked between us and a war and chose the latter. Do you really think I’m going to hate you for falling in love?”

“Jamie, I - “

“It’s okay to love who you want to love more than who you believe you should,” he finishes. “He’s gone, Mum. He’s gone, and she’s here, and it’s… really, really obvious that she loves you back.” He pauses, hesitates, then flashes her a quick, boyish smile. “And also, you know, there might be this lad I met in town a while back while I was on leave. So. I think I know a little of how you feel.”

Kate finds herself smiling, squeezing Jamie’s hand and reaching across to pat his cheek. “Good for you, Jamie,” she says, letting the pride ring clear in her voice. “No _wonder_ you’ve been spending so much time in town.”

Jamie shrugs casually, but he’s smiling too. “Dave’s a good’un. My trusty steed getting me there and back every day.” He reaches into the glovebox for the spare key, handing it to Kate. “And I’m pretty sure he’ll get us to London.”

Kate chuckles lightly, shaking her head. “Darling, your rattletrap is _never_ going to get us to London on time for the performance.”

“Not with that attitude. And _no_ Dave slander,” he warns. “Start the engine, come on. Do you want to sing with the choir or not?”

Kate thinks about it for approximately a second, then tosses the keys back to Jamie. “Switch places. You’re a better driver than I am; you’ll get us to London faster than I will.”

Jamie pumps his fist in the air and unlocks his door, jogging to the driver’s side and sliding in while Kate clambers into the passenger seat. “Alright, perfect. You’ve got your dress and everything? Perfect. Let’s gun it.”

They don’t see the coach en route; Kate’s pretty sure they’re miles ahead and by the time they reach city boundaries of London it’s certain they’re already _in_ the Albert Hall getting ready. They get caught in a horrific traffic jam and Kate keeps glancing at her watch, shifting in her seat. She’s not going to make it in time like this. “You know what to do when we get to the Albert Hall, don’t you? Park, quick as you can, take the artists’ and crew entrance?”

“I’ve got it, Mum.”

“Good. Then I’m going to change, make a dash for it, and leave you to it.” Kate unzips her garment bag and practically drags her dress out. She doesn’t have her good shoes, not after throwing them on the ground by the coach, and Dave doesn’t have tinted windows and they’re stuck in the middle of traffic, but Kate doesn’t care. She strips her clothes off with brutal efficiency and starts pulling the dress on, and Jamie groans jokingly, shielding his eyes with his free hand. “Now I regret agreeing to do this.”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby. I changed your diapers,” Kate shoots back. “Quick, zip me up. I’m going to make a run for the Albert Hall. Make sure you come find me once you park.”

“All right. You’re going to be great. Dad would be so proud,” he says, eyes shining. “I love you, Mum.”

“I love you too,” says Kate, giving him a last one-armed hug, then dashing off.

She runs into the backstage area and almost rams straight into Lisa, who stares at her like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. _“Kate!”_

“Lisa,” she whispers, overcome by a surge of exultant relief and gratitude. She embraces Lisa and holds tight and just doesn’t let go. “Oh, God, Lisa. I’m so, so sorry.”

“What - Jesus. No, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry - Kate, I shouldn’t have said - everything I said.” She looks away, swallowing hard, looking stricken. “I changed the lyric.”

“No. No, you didn’t have to do that.” She pulls back and looks Lisa in the eyes, raising one hand to rest it against her cheek. “Lisa, your song is beautiful, and I will be proud to stand next to you and sing it.”

Lisa’s tearing up, looking at Kate, their gazes locked. “I just wanted - I wanted to honour him. Because you love him.” Her voice breaks on the words. “Because you love him and I, I - Kate, it’s you. I love you.”

Kate kisses her. Just one swift, brief, perfect kiss, a promise of more to come. “I love you,” she says, simply. “Now - we’ve got a performance to do. Yeah?”

Lisa laughs softly, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go do this.”

The final hour before they go on stage is frenetic. There’s a delighted hubbub in the dressing room when Kate appears and the women crowd around her to hug her and welcome her back, and then Kate gets them straight back into the action. They do each other’s hair, makeup, and Kate swaps boots with Frankie so she doesn’t have to go on stage at the Albert Hall in plain brown boots where the heels are nearly falling off. Jamie rushes in twenty minutes later finally having found a parking spot and gamely rushes around helping them with whatever last-minute things they need. They drill the song, again and again, until they’re called on standby.

The emcee booms overhead about the wives, the choir, and Kate and Lisa stand at the very front of the steps, waiting to lead the women in. Lisa leans over to whisper in Kate’s ear. “You ready?”

 _With you, always,_ Kate thinks. She squeezes Lisa’s hand once, waits for their cue, and steps into the light.

The performance basically just _zooms_ right past; they’re there, they’re singing, every note perfect, they sound _incredible,_ and when Kate sings Richard’s line it feels like he’s there with her - not in the audience, maybe, but still in the ways that matter. Lisa holds her hand when they’re done, when the applause begins, and doesn’t let go even as they all head into the reception for drinks and celebration. Someone asks for champagne, and soon glasses are being handed out around the room. Kate grabs two and hands one to Lisa. “I think we both deserve this.” She touches the rim of her glass to Lisa’s. “To the choir.”

“To the choir,” Lisa murmurs, then pulls Kate into a kiss, right there in front of God and everyone, one arm around her waist, not caring who sees. Kate kisses her back, because life is too damn short and she’s lost so much and messed up so much more and she’s not letting this slip out of her grasp. Not ever again.

They get home very, very late that night. Jamie takes Crooks in Dave so Kate can stay on the coach with the choir, and more importantly, with Lisa. They sit at the very back and Lisa slides her hand in Kate’s and holds tight right before she passes out from the exhaustion of the day. Kate kisses her on the forehead, leans against her shoulder, and closes her eyes too.

Owing to the late hour, the coach drops them off at their front doors. Lisa leaves first, with a promise that she’ll drop by Kate’s place when the sun’s up. Despite the tiredness, Kate’s beaming when she reaches her home and stumbles into the living room, exhausted and drained and so, so happy. Jamie’s sitting on the couch, and she all but collapses down beside him.

“Told you you’d be great,” he mumbles sleepily. “Watching from backstage was incredible.” He quirks one eye open and nudges Kate gently. “And I saw you two holding hands.”

Kate just smiles, no denials. “She’s coming over later today. Once we’ve all slept in until noon.”

“Ooh, a _date,”_ Jamie sing-songs, like he’s twelve years old. Kate snorts and pokes him in the side. “Grow up, James.”

“Never,” he laughs. He presses his shoulder to hers, their heads leaned together. Kate’s pretty sure she’s just going to fall asleep right here, right now.

Jamie’s voice comes, one last time, right before she drifts off. “Mum. You’re happy?”

Kate hums softly. She just finished a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. Her son is breathing beside her, safe and beloved. Tomorrow Lisa will come over, maybe for dinner, and Kate will greet her at the door, and kiss her, and know that Lisa’ll kiss her back. What other answer, really, is there? “Yes, Jamie. I’m very happy.”

And more than anything in her life, it’s true.


End file.
